


As We Learn To Close

by astronautcastiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel-centric, Crisis of Faith, Gen, Human Castiel, Light Angst, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Religious Pilgrimage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:33:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astronautcastiel/pseuds/astronautcastiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel has a lot to come to terms with after he falls. When he meets a girl named Maria at the Gas-N-Sip one day, he thinks he's taking his first steps in the right direction. He never could have imagined the journey that follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As We Learn To Close

**Author's Note:**

> A huge massive fireworks-including thank you to [Riley](http://archiveofourown.org/users/misha_anon/works) for her prodding and nudging, her unending enthusiasm and encouragement, but mostly her patience! This fic would have made itself a nice and quiet, cosy home in my drafts folder if it hadn't been for her enabling, tbh.
> 
> Title inspired by Bon Iver's Heavenly Father.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the read!

When Castiel fell from Heaven, he didn’t immediately “become human”. It was more complicated than that. Though, when Sam asks later on, he won’t admit as much – he’ll claim he was fine, just like he always does. But it was more complicated than that.  Castiel balanced on the edge between angel and human for a long time; desperately clinging to his connection to God.

He won’t admit that it took him three weeks of living on the streets to realize he was human now and it was only rational that his means of connecting to his Father changed with him. He won’t admit how hard that realization hit him, and he won’t admit how difficult it was to accept it in the midst of figuring out his newly human body and emotions. But it did and it was.

When Castiel was living on the streets, he was forced to accept a lot of things. He was forced to accept the limits of his body – how long he could go without food, without water or bowel movements or rest; how long he could miss human contact and how long he could lack proper treatment on shallow scrapes and cuts.

Things got better for a while when he was hired at the Gas-N-Sip, going by Steve and performing his act of ‘sales associate’ from nine to five. The days were still filled with struggles, but Castiel found himself with a new friend and a roof over his head to keep out the chill of the night. He did his job the way Nora showed him and some days he was better at it than others. He only spent the money he earned on basic necessities, which – in hindsight – has allowed him to be where he is now, so he figures that was a good decision.

He remembers the exact moment he first saw _her_ – though she wasn’t noticeably different from any other Gas-N-Sip customer. What made her jump out wasn’t her dark hair, held together in a braid that reached as far as her lower back. It wasn’t her warm brown eyes or the laughter lines that framed them. It was her saying “God bless you” when she left. Three simple words that humans told each other all the time, but they stuck with him all through the night.

The next morning he decided it was because she genuinely meant them.  When she came in a week later to buy a cup of coffee, he beat her to it when he handed her back the change.

“God bless you,” Castiel said, and looked her in the eyes.

She was pleasantly surprised by the sincerity in his gaze and they ended up talking for longer than he probably should have while on the job. He learned her name was Maria – and isn’t that strangely poetic, a former angel of the Lord seeking solace with someone named Maria? – and she just got back from Mass. They talked about religion and what it meant to her, about her family back in Spain, about her nearing graduation. Castiel was happy to let her chatter on, because it meant he didn’t have to come up with a fake life history for himself.

Maria invited him to Mass the next week and Castiel found himself agreeing. Happy to _finally_ , after all this searching, find a positive link between himself and his Father again – even if that link was filtered through another person.

Mass with Maria was – an experience. He supposes that’s the word he’d use to describe it, but if he’s honest, he can’t really remember much of what happened. Most of all, the memory that remains is the phantom feeling of disappointment that came with high expectations left unfulfilled. His father wasn’t present in the small building the community called a church. If anything, He was present in the hearts of these people. Castiel felt it stronger in Maria than in the words of the priest.  He told her as much when they left. He told her it wasn’t enough, he wanted to be closer to God still.

“God is within you, Steve. You have to look for him here,” Maria said. She took his hand and placed it over his heart to prove her point. He remembers thinking about that throughout the next week and trying hard not to feel resentment for humans that had never known anything different than this and thought it enough.

Castiel smiles as he fondly remembers the next Sunday and how Maria came into the Gas-N-Sip an hour early, grinning from ear to ear and with a look in her eyes that said she knew something he didn’t. She allowed him to be confused for all of five seconds before she skipped right over the hello’s and launched into a whirlwind of an explanation about the _Camino de Santiago_. She looked at him expectantly after her rambling and barely coherent explanation. Castiel figured that meant she was waiting for an answer, but he hadn’t noticed a question in there somewhere.

Finally, Castiel said: “You want to go on a pilgrimage?”

Two weeks later, they were carrying heavy backpacks, wearing second hand hiking boots and boarding a plane to the south of France. Another two days after that and they found themselves in the pilgrim’s office of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port – newly printed pilgrim’s passport in hand and ready to start their journey.

Castiel remembers dirt roads and mountain paths. He remembers the ache in his calves when they sat down for dinner every evening and shared stories with other pilgrims. He remembers emerald grasslands dotted with sheep and golden fields of sunflowers stretching out as far as his –human – eyes could see. He remembers Maria dropping almost ten pounds of spare clothing by the side of the road after the first two days and cutting off her long black hair to make showering easier. He remembers staring at the space between the mountain tops and where a human brain must imagine Heaven begins.

There were times when they walked in silence, both of them trying to wrestle their thoughts into something resembling order. It took Castiel eighty miles in the crisp mountain air to figure out that one of the most important things about being human is to find a purpose. It took him eighty-one to decide his purpose should be to help people, in whatever way he is able. In hindsight, he figures that sounds a lot like the purpose of an angel.

More numerous were the times where Maria would tell him about her family. Her parents owned one of the largest vineyards on the outskirts of Burgos and she grew up playing seemingly endless games of hide and seek between the vines with siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews. Coming to the US to study engineering was not an easy decision, but Maria’s voice was filled with so much passion when she told him about her specialization in agricultural and biological engineering, that Castiel instinctively knew it was the best decision she could have made. When he asked her why she hadn’t made arrangements to move back home now that she graduated, she told him about all the ways she fell in love with America and with herself while she was over there. Castiel guessed that meant she was staying.

In turn, Maria asks him a few times about his story. Castiel tried to come up with things at first, but learned early on that she could look right through that. He gave up on pretending after the first week and told her he just wasn’t ready to share yet. She never pushed him after that; and even though her endless questions never quite stopped, she was content to take his silence as an answer and follow her own train of thought into different territory.

They met Maria’s family on the twentieth day, marking the halfway point of the journey. Castiel would learn later on that Maria’s parents, her two elder brothers, her youngest sister and three of her cousins squeezed themselves into a minivan and drove for an hour and a half to meet them with an impressive picnic by the side of the road somewhere around Mansilla de las Mulas instead of in the city of Burgos, which they walked past a week ago. Maria’s family wanted the visit to mean something.

It did, because Castiel remembers the way they welcomed him as one of their own and made sure his plate was never empty. He remembers their laughter and how they managed to lift both his and Maria’s spirits by telling old and clearly familiar stories of their childhood in Spain. Castiel remembers being stunned while receiving eight tight hugs goodbye when their bellies were full and it was time to continue their journey. They weren’t allowed to leave without promises of visiting when they were done.

There was an old chapel along the way, stones since long eroded by the elements and nothing but an altar inside. It was the altar that was special, because it was covered in notes. Notes of pilgrims, weighed down by rocks and candles, containing the names of those they had lost. While Maria sat down against the chapel wall outside with a pen and a corner of their map of the Camino to write out her own commemoration, Castiel unpacked his backpack to reach for the matchbox on the bottom. He remembers lighting the candles one by one and whispering Enochian prayers that felt like home on the tip of his tongue.

Fellow pilgrims walking the Camino came and went. Every single one that took the time to get to know Castiel and Maria during communal dinners in small hostels by the road left a lasting impression on him. There was Marcus from Germany who recently lost his grandmother and dedicated his journey to her. Sarah and Esteban, siblings from the south of Spain who walked the Camino every year and were so familiar with the weather, they had only brought one small backpack and took turns carrying it. Ivan, a Polish student trying to rekindle his faith; and Luisa, a sixty-year-old Bolivian who wasn’t sure she was going to make it to Santiago even though Castiel could have sworn she’d make it on her unwavering faith alone.

Castiel remembers the sadness that washed over him on the final day before they were set to reach Santiago. He remembers how Maria was so in tune with him after spending so much time together that she took one look at his face and proceeded to make up an excuse every time they had an opportunity to take a break. When dusk fell and they hadn’t even walked half of the route they planned out, Castiel smiled at her gratefully and booked them a room in at a city inn famous for their wine.

After nightfall, the hostess welcomed them outside to watch the city festival, where Galicia’s history was told in a spectacle of fire – a story of struggle and rebirth. He remembers the glittering of tears in Maria’s eyes and how he grabbed her hand on instinct; the little squeeze she gave his fingers reminding them both why they had been walking forty days. Seven-hundred and eighty kilometers of being exposed to the elements and exhausting their bodies brought them to that festival at exactly the right time to catch the performance on the final night before they would finally reach their destination. Castiel remembers how a weight lifted off his heart last night.

 

*

 

And now they are here, joined by a hundred people, ready to celebrate their love for God during the pilgrim’s mass. The air is thick with incense from the swinging burner in front of the altar and Castiel can see smoke slowly curling up towards the high ceilings, dancing around ancient pillars. He’s clutching his pilgrim’s passport in his hand, the ink of the final stamp smeared on the pad of his thumb. He glances at Maria and smiles at the way she’s cradling the scallop she bought earlier from a street vendor on the cathedral square.

The mass starts and Castiel sees catharsis all around him. He gets it now; he gets the symbolism used in the Bible; he gets the language and the way humanity used it to describe something indescribable. He sees the wonder and relief and bliss on the faces of the people who walked for miles and miles, but he doesn’t _feel_ any different. He feels like the same Castiel from two months ago – the Castiel that was lost and didn’t feel like he belonged, only now he’s extended his collection of memories. Even though he’s tried so hard to accept himself as he is now, Castiel still feels like a former angel.

He searches his mind, stretches his consciousness out through his body – from the tips of his fingers to all ten of his toes – and he can’t find the same emotions he sees in all these people. He feels like an outsider suddenly. He feels like it’s wrong for him to try and be a part of this – to intrude on this moment that’s so incredibly _human_. He needs to get out.

Maria grabs his hand. He looks down at her and finds understanding in her deep brown eyes. She nods once and starts pulling him from the crowd. It takes some maneuvering to find their way outside, the cathedral filled to the brim with people, but when the heavy wooden side doors fall closed behind them with a definitive thud, Castiel feels like he can breathe again.

“Come on, Steve, we’re not finished yet,” Maria says and starts walking.

When she’s almost out of sight, nearly disappearing in one of the alleys at the far edge of the square, her words finally seep through the whirlwind of thoughts in Castiel’s mind and he starts running to catch up. He reaches her side and falls into step with her. They don’t talk – they don’t need to, reverting back to a familiar rhythm that’s seeped into their bones over the last forty days.

They walk and Castiel does his best to clear his mind. The sun keeps dropping lower and lower in the clear sky, the air getting chillier on Castiel’s skin. Maria finally breaks their comfortable silence when he starts feeling a little less ready to bolt.

“There’s a three day extension to the Camino and we’re walking it. I’m not ready for this to end yet,” she explains and Castiel feels endless gratitude for her in that moment. Trust Maria to make this about herself and not say a word about Castiel’s panic from earlier. He laughs softly and it’s all the answer she needs to a question she didn’t ask.

When Castiel hears the familiar rumbling of two tummies, he starts looking around for inns or hostels or places that offer rooms for the night. They end up sharing a meal and a tiny room with an Irish girl named Sarah, who tells them stories of her hometown until none of them can keep their eyes open for another second. Instead of using the bed, Castiel falls asleep with his head pillowed on Maria’s shoulder as they sit on the floor.

He wakes up around four in the morning – when the tentative sunlight is trying its hardest to turn the sky blue behind the flimsy curtain that’s draped in front of the small bedroom window. Both Sarah and Maria are still asleep, Sarah on her stomach on one of the two beds, Maria on the floor, sagged against the frame of the second bed. Castiel quietly gets up and puts a pillow under Maria’s head before getting his toothbrush and toothpaste and making the trip downstairs to go find a tap he’s allowed to use.

When he comes back into the room – holding bread rolls and a thermos filled with hot coffee he got from the woman renting out the room – the girls are up and chattering away again. He gets two equally delighted kisses on the cheek for the coffee and they eat the rolls while packing their bags. Sarah is not accompanying them on the final Camino, so they say their goodbyes before heading down their respective paths.

Maria is looking reverently at the phone number scribbled on her hand in red pen. When she catches Castiel looking, she flushes a lovely shade of red that matches the numbers and looks away. Castiel doesn’t say anything, but wears a pleased smile for the rest of the day.

They walk mostly in silence, a quiet melancholy surrounding them. After buying dinner from a street vendor, Maria spots a hostel that has the scallop sign painted next to the front door. They are alone for the night, but neither one of them really minds the peace and quiet. When the lights are turned off, Castiel lies awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. He thinks about Dean and Sam back in Lebanon, Kansas and hopes they don’t need his help. About Nora at the Gas-N-Sip, hoping she’s found a new sales associate by now so she can spend more time with her daughter. About Metatron’s trap and how he walked into it with both eyes open and should have known better.

Castiel sighs and turns over on the thin mattress, storing the memories in their own little boxes in the back of his mind – even if some go more willingly than others. Maria would tell him there’s no use dwelling on the past. He can practically hear her voice in his head, the motherly tone she’d use to soften the statement. He falls asleep in the middle of imagining the way she’d laugh at him for trying to protest it.

When he wakes up, it’s to the sound of Maria hissing in pain when she puts on her boots. Their feet are in bad shape, but he told her it was part of the true spirit of being a pilgrim. He didn’t tell her he read that in the travel guide she brought with her on the plane.  Castiel stretches lazily and wishes her good morning when she rolls her eyes at him.

They eat honey covered churros while they’re walking and talk excitedly about reaching the coast. The air has smelled like salt all morning and the expectation it brings makes them both giddy.

In the afternoon, they cross paths with a farmer herding his cows over the narrow and winding dirt road. Maria perches on a rock by the side to let them pass and to watch the process with an amused smile. Castiel decides they deserve a break and sits down next to her. It takes the farmer nearly an hour to make sure the road is clear again and they offer him some energy bars before they leave, waving away his gratitude and wishing him luck on the rest of his trip down the mountain.

A few hours later, they reach the top of the rocky path and suddenly he sees it: the ocean. They’re right on time to see the sun sink slowly into the water. Castiel is hypnotized and keeps his eyes on the glittering sea while Maria finds her way down the other side of the ridge and helps him avoid sliding on loose rocks on their descent. He manages to keep his balance and feels sand slowly creeping into his boots when they are finally at sea level. He doesn’t pay it any attention – his gaze still fixed on the place where Heaven and Earth seem to kiss each other goodnight. When they reach the edge of the water, Castiel falls to his knees and takes in gulps of air, until it feels like they fill up his body and mind.

This is it. Though it still isn’t quite right, it’s closest he’s felt to his Father since he fell from his home all those months ago and something unlocks in his chest. He didn’t need grand cathedrals or ancient texts to rekindle his connection. It turns out all he needed was a clear mind and an open gaze.

He realizes Maria dropped down next to him and is staring at the setting sun as well – golden light illuminating her brown eyes, giving them an amber glow. Maria’s skin is sun-kissed and her lips are as cracked as Castiel’s feel, but she seems lit up from the inside with a sort of joy that can only come from the completion of days and days of overcoming struggles and hurdles. He glances back at the ocean, breathes in deeply and sighs – feeling every muscle in his body relax in his relief.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asks.

_Yes_ , Castiel thinks, _it is._ But he doesn’t say it. Instead he tangles their fingers together and sits next to her, listening to their breathing sync up with the waves.

“I told you God is inside you, Steve. I told you all you had to do, was look for him here.” And like a mirror of that first time, she takes their linked hands and puts them over his heart. It feels like the best sort of absolution.

Castiel thinks he’s finally ready to tell her his story.


End file.
